The court's precedent-setting decision is one that lawyers believe will cut down the huge cost of settling asbestos lawsuits in Mississippi.

Marcy Croft, a lawyer with Forman, Perry, Watkins, Krutz and Tardy in Jackson, Miss., noted that "the high court also said that by filing these vague, ill-defined complaints, the plaintiffs had abused and failed to comply with the Mississippi Rules of Civil Procedure."

She added, "This decision should cut down on multi-plaintiff lawsuits dealing with asbestos," as class action suits are called in Mississippi. The firm she works for does a high volume of asbestos litigation. She declined to specify which companies the firm represents.

In its Aug. 26 decision the high court said, "Complaints should not be filed in matters where plaintiffs intend to find out in discovery whether or not, and against whom, they have a cause of action."

The court added, "Absent exigent circumstances, plaintiff's counsel should not file a complaint until sufficient information is obtained and plaintiff's counsel believes in good faith that each plaintiff has an appropriate cause of action to assert against a defendant in the jurisdiction where the complaint is to be filed.

"To do otherwise is an abuse of the system, and is sanctionable," the court added.

The court added that most of those plaintiffs, 225 of the 264, "are unable to identify any employment with the state of Mississippi." It added, "We are not told which plaintiff was exposed to which product manufactured by which defendant in which workplace at any particular time."

Miss Croft said that the decision should serve to cut down on the multi-plaintiff lawsuits, the vehicle through which most asbestos litigation has taken place in the state over the last several years.

The court's decision followed up on a precedent set in a ruling last month in a similar class action case involving a pharmaceutical company.